This book explores the central but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for Black ‘freedom’ and emancipation. The collection examines the ...
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This book explores the central but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for Black ‘freedom’ and emancipation. The collection examines the structural subjugation and condemnation of Black African and Afro-mixed descent peoples globally within the past 500 years of trans-Atlantic societies of Western modernity, doing so in connection to the population's dehumanization and/or invisibilization within various epistemic formations of the West. In turn, the collection foregrounds the extent to which the ending of this imposed subjugation/condemnation has necessarily entailed critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against and beyond knowledge and epistemic formations that have worked to ‘naturalize’ this condition within the West's various socio-human formations. The chapters engage primarily with knowledge formations and practices generated from within the discourse of ‘race’, but also doing so in relation to other intersectional socio-human discourses of Western modernity. They engage as well the critiques, challenges, and counter-formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions — historic and contemporary — of the Black world. Through these examinations, the contributors either implicitly point towards, or explicitly take part in, the formation of a new kind of critical — but also emancipatory — epistemology.Less

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles : Essays in Critical Epistemology

Published in print: 2015-09-01

This book explores the central but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for Black ‘freedom’ and emancipation. The collection examines the structural subjugation and condemnation of Black African and Afro-mixed descent peoples globally within the past 500 years of trans-Atlantic societies of Western modernity, doing so in connection to the population's dehumanization and/or invisibilization within various epistemic formations of the West. In turn, the collection foregrounds the extent to which the ending of this imposed subjugation/condemnation has necessarily entailed critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against and beyond knowledge and epistemic formations that have worked to ‘naturalize’ this condition within the West's various socio-human formations. The chapters engage primarily with knowledge formations and practices generated from within the discourse of ‘race’, but also doing so in relation to other intersectional socio-human discourses of Western modernity. They engage as well the critiques, challenges, and counter-formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions — historic and contemporary — of the Black world. Through these examinations, the contributors either implicitly point towards, or explicitly take part in, the formation of a new kind of critical — but also emancipatory — epistemology.

This chapter discusses the book's main themes. This book is organized around the central but critically neglected theme of the role of knowledge and epistemic formations within the context of social ...
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This chapter discusses the book's main themes. This book is organized around the central but critically neglected theme of the role of knowledge and epistemic formations within the context of social movements for human emancipation. It specifically explores this thematic structure within the context of the localized and/or global struggles — both contemporary and historic — of the peoples of Black African and Afro-mixed descent against their forcibly and systemically-imposed subjugated and condemned status over the past five centuries within trans-Atlantic societies of the West. It argues that it is no coincidence that the self-assertions and emancipatory mobilizations by members of this population against their imposed subjugation/condemnation and dehumanization, logically also carried with them critiques of, challenges to, and/or counter-formulations against and beyond the same epistemic formations that coincided with and legitimized Black peoples' imposed abject-status within the various socio-human formations of Western modernity. These critiques, challenges, and/or counter-formulations point towards new ways of ‘knowing’, new ways of ‘being’ human, and/or new conceptions of ‘freedom’ and visions for human emancipation.Less

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: An Introduction

Jason R. AmbroiseSabine Broeck

Published in print: 2015-09-01

This chapter discusses the book's main themes. This book is organized around the central but critically neglected theme of the role of knowledge and epistemic formations within the context of social movements for human emancipation. It specifically explores this thematic structure within the context of the localized and/or global struggles — both contemporary and historic — of the peoples of Black African and Afro-mixed descent against their forcibly and systemically-imposed subjugated and condemned status over the past five centuries within trans-Atlantic societies of the West. It argues that it is no coincidence that the self-assertions and emancipatory mobilizations by members of this population against their imposed subjugation/condemnation and dehumanization, logically also carried with them critiques of, challenges to, and/or counter-formulations against and beyond the same epistemic formations that coincided with and legitimized Black peoples' imposed abject-status within the various socio-human formations of Western modernity. These critiques, challenges, and/or counter-formulations point towards new ways of ‘knowing’, new ways of ‘being’ human, and/or new conceptions of ‘freedom’ and visions for human emancipation.

This chapter seeks to reinvent the genre of contemporary travelogue through a satirical juxtaposition of travel guide material against collaged images representing Black diasporic undercurrents ...
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This chapter seeks to reinvent the genre of contemporary travelogue through a satirical juxtaposition of travel guide material against collaged images representing Black diasporic undercurrents within European metropolitan histories. The reinvention of this genre effects the symbolic re-programming of the genre-specific ‘inner eyes’ of secular Western Man, whose code of ‘race’ rendered invisible the history of Black African and Afro-mixed descent peoples from a metropolitan secular Western memory. The chapter takes the reader through a tour of Paris and London, whereby images of monuments, stately buildings, well-known places, urban parks, and a range of other familiar sites are reinvested, literally painted over, with figurations of Black iconographic artists, political leaders, sports heroes, and intellectuals, as well as visual allusions to silenced and ignored moments of colonial and enslavist violence and Black counter-assertion. This visual re-investment shifts the issue of cognition to the realm of art as a form of epistemic intervention, doing so in this specific case as a challenge to the systemic invisibilization and/or negation of Black lives within a modern Western memory.Less

Imaginary Black Topographies: What are Monuments For?

Lubaina Himid

Published in print: 2015-09-01

This chapter seeks to reinvent the genre of contemporary travelogue through a satirical juxtaposition of travel guide material against collaged images representing Black diasporic undercurrents within European metropolitan histories. The reinvention of this genre effects the symbolic re-programming of the genre-specific ‘inner eyes’ of secular Western Man, whose code of ‘race’ rendered invisible the history of Black African and Afro-mixed descent peoples from a metropolitan secular Western memory. The chapter takes the reader through a tour of Paris and London, whereby images of monuments, stately buildings, well-known places, urban parks, and a range of other familiar sites are reinvested, literally painted over, with figurations of Black iconographic artists, political leaders, sports heroes, and intellectuals, as well as visual allusions to silenced and ignored moments of colonial and enslavist violence and Black counter-assertion. This visual re-investment shifts the issue of cognition to the realm of art as a form of epistemic intervention, doing so in this specific case as a challenge to the systemic invisibilization and/or negation of Black lives within a modern Western memory.